


Weaponize

by princeymarmar



Category: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: Angst, Canonical Death and Resurrection, Character Study, Gen, Minor canon divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 10:10:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20833724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princeymarmar/pseuds/princeymarmar
Summary: Deprived of the ability to communicate with the Guardian of the Sacred Palace, Yunan comes to his own conclusions on why the djinn keeps reviving him.(In the end, intent doesn't matter; one of them is right, anyways.)





	Weaponize

**Author's Note:**

> One day I am going to create work for the romantic Yunan/Ugo tag. But this is not that day.
> 
> Today I decided to spend too much time thinking about the reasons Ugo probably revived Yunan, versus Yunan's (canonical) assumptions as to why he's being revived, and, as I once told friends over discord:
> 
> "The potential dissonance between Yunan's thoughts on why he's being revived and why Ugo is actually reviving him, the fact that he can't actually ask/talk about it, the like. Jesus Christ imagine someone is reviving you because they want to give you a chance at a good life but you just assume the entire time you're like. Pawn in the game. Last line of defense."
> 
> And then I decided to make that dissonance into a fic. :) I hope you enjoy. :)

The first time, he can understand if it was pity. He has lived many centuries and seen many Magi. None who live long enough for their names to be recorded in history have ever died quite so young.

The second time is where things get _fuzzy_. He was young then, too, when the mob swallowed him up and tore him apart, because _if the queen has to go, shouldn't her Magi go as well?_ But there have been others, then, since him, who died around the same age, and when new Magi come to take their place they come with different faces, different memories. 

The third time is where he knows he is different. Other Magi have come and gone, and sometimes one with an especially cruel fate is given a second chance - but three lives is the extent of all Magi other than him, and even that is an extremely rare privilege. More often, you were lucky to get a second chance. Most had only one.

The fourth time, he is tired, and ready to die, for his ruhk to be released and restored and recycled into someone new. Once more, the Guardian of the Sacred Palace shakes his head, and he finds himself waking again in the same body as before.

It is then that Yunan's thoughts on the Guardian turn bitter, and he begins to question the reason for his resurrection. 

Asking about it does no good. Inside the Sacred Palace, he cannot speak, cannot question; Ugo is many things, but he is not a mind reader. Instead, he's left to draw his own conclusions, and what he realizes, slowly, is this:

  * That he is one of, if not the, first Magi of this world;
  * That, with each life he lives, and each time he resurrects, he is slowly becoming more powerful, until he stands on a level above even most Magi;
  * That Al Thamen is an active and powerful threat, and one that Ugo is _very_ aware of.

And, he realizes, as this all clicks into place, that it's practical to have someone with multiple lifetimes of experience and power far greater than most running about on your side.

_Practical_.

The word sours like a pit in his stomach. He doesn't think Ugo is intentionally cruel; the djinn doesn't simply punt him back into the world the instant he dies. Sometimes, after especially hard or painful lifetimes, Ugo lets him stay, even briefly, in the Sacred Palace; his body is safe in the Rift, after all, and even in this form he seems so weary. Ugo is gentle, and comforting, and he fills Yunan's time in the Sacred Palace with long-winded ramblings about magic and science and vague details of a world before.

And yet, Yunan wishes he _would_ be crueler. The djinn's kindness clashes with Yunan's own perceptions of why he is here, why he keeps being resurrected. If he is meant to be a weapon, one last line of defense, then it makes no sense to keep him from the world he is meant to protect. As quickly as he can be revived, even a moment of hesitation could make him too late.

So then, why?

Why spend so much time with him? Why let him stay at all?

In the end, he decides that this, too, must be _practical_; many of Ugo's ramblings are about magic, often things Yunan has never heard of, dreamed of, or considered trying before. It's _information_, things that he couldn't have learned in his world, things that help him grow in power and strength.

It's the only way he's able to reconcile it, anyway.

* * *

He lost.

All his power, and knowledge, and efforts, and brave words, and he had still _lost_, because you can't win against an enemy who cheats, who hides their true self away in a world where they cannot be reached or harmed. He should have _known_ better, should have expected this somehow - but damnit, when you explode a woman into tiny chunks of flesh and blood, you usually _expect_ that she'll stay down for longer than a minute.

She holds him down and tells him how she won't kill him, that killing him is too easy and sends him right back to Ugo anyway - that instead, she will force him into depravity, sever his connection to the Sacred Palace forevermore. And as bitter at Ugo as he may be he is so, _so_ scared, because he would rather die here and now and forever than never be able to see the djinn again-

Aladdin and his friends arrive only moments before it's too late, and Yunan spends the rest of the fight reeling, delirious. "I was astounded by the magical prowess," he might say later, or "I was in a good deal of pain there". Both skirt close enough to the truth without truly revealing it.

He had failed in his singular, special mission.

* * *

It's… odd, how the world settles in the end. The Rift as it once was is no longer, and though it's still settled in the depths of a canyon, Yunan's home sees sunlight now. Sinbad is gone, lost in one final sacrifice to stop David. The strangest of all changes, however, is the one currently sitting across from him, fidgeting in his seat.

If someone had told Yunan a few months ago that the Guardian of the Sacred Palace would soon be sitting in his home, drinking his tea, and having an actual conversation with him, he would have laughed in their face - and yet, here they were.

"It's funny how things turn out, isn't it?" he says, swirling his tea in its cup, before taking a sip. "I still can't believe I'm actually talking to you."

"Me, neither," says Ugo, in his soft voice, smiling at him as his hands shake on his own cup of tea; they've only known each other like this for such a short while, and yet Yunan can tell how hard he's trying to hold himself back from being openly excited. It warms his heart a little, like a salve rubbed over the bitter feelings. He can't help but smile back.

"It was all I dreamed about, back when the only times I saw you were in the Sacred Palace, and I couldn't talk at all. Ah, well. We've got all the time in the world to talk about things now, haven't we?" He pauses, taking another sip of tea; when he continues, the smile has faded from his eyes. "Sorry for failing that 'special mission' you had for me, though. Ah, well. At least Aladdin took care of it in the end, didn't he?"

Ugo glances up suddenly, brow furrowing in confusion. "Special mission? What do you mean by that?"

A trickle of unease runs it's way up Yunan's spine, that he tries to casually brush off as unfounded. "I. You know? Protecting against Al Thamen. Wasn't that why you kept reviving me? To serve as a defense against them?"

"What," says Ugo, hoarsely, the color rapidly draining from his face as his eyes grow wide, "that's not - that wasn't why-"

Seeing him react this way causes something to stir inside Yunan, and the bitterness creeps back up through him like bile. "Then what," he says flatly. "What other reason could you have had for bringing me back. If I wasn't - what else is there, if I wasn't meant to be a tool against Al Thamen? Why bring me back at all. If I wasn't serving some greater purpose, why bring me back? Why not let me just _fucking_ die!? I wanted to die."

The sudden weight of his words catches Yunan in the middle of his rant, and he lets them hang in the air for a moment, just as much for his own processing as for Ugo's. "I wanted to die," he repeats, softer.

The former djinn looks on the verge of shattering, face twisting as he speaks again. "I didn't - I just - I wanted to give you a better life."

"Well," says Yunan, reeling for a moment - and then the bitterness seeps back in, grounds him once more. "You didn't."


End file.
